These students will be receiving their medals at UNSW on Friday 18 November.

School Certificate. I expect all Year 10 students to be preparing for their School certificate exams next week. Teachers have been running revision sessions this week.

Years 7 - 9 exams. Students completed these this week. Reports will be distributed on Thursday 15 December. This is also the day of the Christmas quad assembly, led by the prefects.

Food Fairs. Thank you to Mrs Chen and the food fair committee, indeed all the parents who are continuing to support the school in this way. Your efforts are really appreciated. We really enjoy the food and the friendship.

Ex-student success – truly a Rusian! Congratulations to Malini Raj F Fin (class of 1997 – First in Agriculture in 1996), who is the Members‟ Choice winner of the Most Outstanding Young Professional, awarded by the Financial Services Institute of Australasia. Malini is the Manager, Portfolio, Co-ordination and Analytics at Westpac and has had over 10 years experience in the financial services industry. She commenced her career in 2002 as an investment banking analyst with Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup and has subsequently held corporate finance positions in Pacific Road Corporate Finance and Wilson HTM Investment Group where she was involved in various capital raisings, M&A and IPO transactions in excess of $400 million across a wide variety of industries including biotech, industrials, mining and resources, gaming, education and healthcare.

More recently, Malini has worked at Westpac where she has had a variety of roles. She was promoted within the retail bank to manager – portfolio co-ordination and analytics – operations and business efficiency in December 2010. In this capacity, she is responsible for ensuring that all material changes (strategic and tactical) that are to be implemented into the Westpac Retail Bank are identified, captured and analysed for business impact, prioritised and coordinated to ensure changes are implemented effectively with a focus on customer centricity.

Malini is the Chair of the NSW Young Finance Professionals of Finsia, a Member of Women in Finsia Committee, NSW/ACT Finsia Regional Councillor, has been a mentor on the Finsia mentoring program for six programs and involved as a supervisor for the Finsia FSP qualification. Malini was selected and has recently completed a five week secondment with Balkanu Cape York Development Corporation. Outside of work, she is involved in a voluntary capacity with the Starlight Children‟s Foundation and was part of the 2011 Stanford Who‟s Who.

Professional Learning. Ms Connors, Mrs Ballantyne, Ms Hameed, Mrs Kowalski, Mr Drayson and Ms Novotni are at The Mind and its Potential Conference on Monday and Tuesday. Mrs Johnson, Mr Wilson, Ms Webb, Mrs McKenzie and Ms Jenns are listening to Michael Carr Greg on student welfare on Friday. I am at the AMT medal presentation with Mr Woodhouse on Tuesday, and at the Selective Schools Principals‟ conference on Thursday and Friday.

Next week

Saturday 5 November: Cadets – one day hike

Sunday 6 November: Intermediate Band Tour (years 7/8)

Monday 7 November: HSC continues; School Certificate – English and Science; Intermediate Band Tour (years 7/8); Australian Music Day